4D studio blog

36 Verbs

By reading this essay by RoseLee Goldberg and watching Marina Abramovic’s film, the concepts (or non-concepts) of performance art have come to be an intriguing art form that I am excited to take part in soon. Performance art is an art form that is opposite of most other traditional art forms. It is “live art” and the artist is not separated from their audience. It engages the public in a social manner rather than an empty gallery space, and compels concepts that are more internal than external. Through viewing Marina Abramovic’s performance pieces, you can see that she is fully invested in her work emotionally. You see the act of making art- in an extremely vulnerable and emotional state, but also the act of performing- putting yourself on display to present your concept or character. The dualism of these two actions comes together in a beautifully raw way through performance art. As Goldberg stated, performance art has existed since the beginning of time, but it is those performances in an art space that give them the weight they often pull conceptually. 

For this project I considered Sean Cubitt’s Vanishing and Becoming as a point of primary inspiration. He views the roots of art and video as projections, and silhouettes- distortions of light. In the process of this piece, it occurred to me that everything we see through our eyes and in our entire world is just a distortion of light. Light bounces off of objects to create shapes and colors that we interpret as our environment. Taking it a step beyond, when those primary distortions of light then also become distorted in themselves, is this what we consider as art making? An additional layer of change and chaos on our common world- the entropy of our universe? What can then make that chaos in our own heads in order to then produce an art form? This is when hallucinations and the state of dreams came into play. Inspired by the song Hallucinating by Elohim, the sounds of the track captured the dream like state hallucinations take place in. I wanted to distort something familiar and beautiful- a rose. As it blossoms so does the distortion and the morphing of the world around it including itself.